The Ad Hoc 1928 Building Committee on Tuesday approved $17,700 to install a standalone, four-ton air-conditioning unit serving the new Town Hall's server room. The existing one-and-a-half-ton unit shares a cooling loop with the rest of the building and has been running continuously without ever reaching its set point.
It was the first regular committee meeting since the May 14 ribbon cutting, and the agenda showed it. Construction is essentially complete. The seven change orders Mason from KBE Building Corp. walked through netted out as a $3,551 credit. The new spending was not construction — it was facilities management: cooling a server room, putting a security camera in the dance studio, and acknowledging that the bricks on one side of the building still don't tell visitors this is the town hall.
The Server Room That Runs Hot
The MDF room — the building's main fiber and server space, on the second floor in what used to be a typing-and-computer classroom — has been averaging 76 to 77 degrees, with peaks as high as 84. The existing one-and-a-half-ton fan-coil unit shares a cooling loop with the rest of the building. It runs constantly. It does not catch up. Brian, in IT, prefers the room at 71.
The committee approved a quote from Fahrenheit Mechanical Services for a four-ton standalone unit on an isolated condenser, wired into the building's backup generator and installed in-house with electricians. The unit will operate independently of the building's main mechanical loop, leaving room for an additional server rack of expansion and acting as a failsafe if the primary system goes down.
The MDF room is not just a town hall closet. It is part of a shared loop that supports other town infrastructure, including some Police Department services. A failure there is not contained.
"This thing is working overtime right now, and this will take a great deal of stress off of it," committee chair Peter Mastrobattista said.
The motion carried on a voice vote with no opposed.
A Camera, and a Quiet Sign of Occupancy
Earlier in the meeting, the committee approved $1,703 to install a security camera in the building's dance and yoga studio. The funds come from remaining technology budget. Town Manager Kathleen Blonski told the committee the studio was the only active public space in the building without camera coverage — the hallways on every floor have cameras, the gym does, the lobby does, the exterior does. The studio, where rec-department programs now run on a regular schedule, did not.
Smaller signs of occupancy surfaced elsewhere in the meeting. Two picnic tables, installed on the north side of the gym between the two gym doors as part of a site-work change order, are "used daily by staff," Blonski said. Programs run in the studio. People are working in the building.
Seven Change Orders, Net Credit
The change-order batch was small and credit-heavy, which is what closeout phase looks like. KBE walked through five contractor change orders: a $5,837 credit on stock items deselected in design review (wall paneling, plumbing accessories); $8,206 to add power, data, and HVAC for Room 119A, the rec department office that was converted mid-construction from a storage room; $8,492.48 for accent tile on the wet walls of the existing second- and third-floor bathrooms; $5,707.90 for conference-room lighting modifications, including one conference room that was converted to an office; and $1,437.04 for AV equipment relocations to match the building's final furniture layout.
The site-work contractor brought two more: a $37,145 credit on miscellaneous items — light bulb bases, five existing poles reused instead of replaced, landscape adjustments — and a $15,588 add for the two picnic-table pads and a new concrete pad for the dumpster at the parking-lot perimeter.
Net across all seven: a $3,551 credit. That number — small, negative, dominated by post-occupancy adjustments — is the shape of a project on its way out the door. It is also what is left after the 282-change-order tally that ran through the project's accounting in March, one in five of which the financial subcommittee designated as errors or omissions in the original drawings and specifications.
The Sign Problem That Just Became a Capital Priority
An extended discussion turned to exterior signage. A resident member of the committee raised the recurring problem: approaching the new Town Hall from the back side of the building gives a visitor no signal that this is the seat of government. The brick masonry returns hide the elevation. What looks like the main entrance from one direction is a stair landing. Two road signs added by the town's highway department point drivers toward parking, but the building itself does not announce its function from the wrong-side approach.
Blonski told the committee that signage — interior wayfinding and exterior site signage — is the priority for the FY2026-27 capital budget, which begins July 1. It moves ahead of furniture replacement in the sequencing. The package is still being scoped, but it is now first in line.
The committee also took up a motion to cancel its scheduled June 9 meeting. The motion was made and seconded; the discussion immediately turned to the next available date (June 23); the chair moved to the next agenda item without an explicit voice vote captured on the recording. Both the chair and the Town Manager spoke afterward as if the cancellation had carried by consensus. The next meeting is on the books for June 23.
What's Left
The commissioning agent, IES, has just under $20,000 remaining on its contract. A final report is still owed. The second furniture shipment — approved at a prior meeting — is scheduled to arrive the second week of July. The standing punch-list working group — Christopher Fagan, Public Works Director Russ Arnold, Mason from KBE, and a fourth member named on the recording only as Tony — met immediately after the committee adjourned.
The HVAC noise complaint that surfaced at last year's closeout review was about a different system, in a different building. The new one is for the server room. The Mercury notes the irony without further comment.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road — the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. The Mercury covers civic projects that take longer than anyone hoped and finish anyway. Farmington Storage operates on the same principle, at institutional grade. 860.777.4001 📦
— Jack Beckett has covered the 1928 building project long enough to know the difference between a fan-coil unit and an isolated condenser, which is to say he has read the change-order log. He is on his second coffee. The MDF room is at 84 degrees. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers Farmington's town government, police logs, development, education, elections, and community — slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news" and we stand behind it: by the time you read this, the dust has settled, the facts are checked, and Jack Beckett has fact-checked the temperature in the server room. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰